Download 42 Acts 20v13-38 Paul`s Farewell Address

Presentation 42
Presentation 42
Introduction
How would you behave if you were saying
goodbye to someone for what you knew was
the last time? I imagine that you would
experience some very powerful emotions but
you would also want to make your last words
count. You would want to say something of
lasting value and not simply talk about the
weather. With this in mind we examine what
Paul had to say to the elders of the Ephesian
church whom he summoned to Miletus to
meet him for the last time.
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
In these verses Paul provides us with rare
personal insights. And while it is true that they
have a primary application for ministers of the
gospel they also have much to teach every
Christian, for all of us are engaged in Christian
service.
In v19 he speaks about serving the Lord in the
environment of testing with ‘humility and
tears’. As we have noted time and again he was
brought to the brink of breaking point, which
was of crucial significance since these death
experiences opened the door to resurrection
experiences of the life of Christ.
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
The kind of testing that Paul experienced
can produce two quite different reactions.
The first, is the one Paul identifies with, ‘humility
and tears’. The testing experiences of life expose
the vulnerability of our humanity. We find
ourselves in situations from which we are
incapable of delivering ourselves.
What are we meant to do? To submit
ourselves under ‘the mighty hand of God’!
By so doing we acknowledge our need of God’s
strength and intervention. This experience melts
our hearts and we benefit as a result.
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
Secondly, we can fail to improve upon our
sufferings, becoming arrogant rather than
humble. We shake our fist heavenward
and say, ‘How dare you allow something
like this happen to me!’ We become selfassertive and rebellious and the whole
process far from making our hearts more
tender serves to hardens them. We steel
ourselves against God to our great
detriment and loss.
Paul was never too proud to learn from
his sore circumstances and that was part
of the reason for his fruitfulness.
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
Secondly, Paul says that he had ‘no hesitation to
preach what might be helpful’. And that, as we
have already seen, incurred great cost. It meant
telling people not necessarily what they wanted
to hear but the message that God laid upon his
heart.
There is often a great gulf between what people
want and what they need. At mealtimes some
children constantly cry out for sweets. But the
responsible parent replies, ‘I know that is what
you want but trust me when I tell you that what
you need is nutritious food to help you grow
and give you energy’.
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
Or people go to the doctor and ask for a tonic, then
the doctor says, ‘You may want a tonic but what you
need is some radical surgery’. When Paul preached
he did not seek to lull his hearers into a false sense
of security about their relationship with God. He
called people [v21] to repentance and faith. He told
them they needed a change in their thinking about
God and in the way they lived their lives before him.
Again in v26 he told the elders that he had not
‘hesitated to declare the whole will of God’. Real
faithfulness will not bury or dilute truth but applies
it searchingly, even when we know our hearers
might smart under it and remove us from our
Christmas card list
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
Thirdly, note Paul’s sheer singlemindedness in v22-24. He makes it clear
that it was becoming increasingly
dangerous for him to be God’s man. His
ministry had not only made its impact
upon vested financial interests of the
ancient world but an generated
implacable opposition among the Jews
who wanted to silence him for good. He
tells his hearers that God’s Spirit had
already given intimation of the danger
that lay ahead. And yet he was
determined to go where God was
leading!
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
In 21v4, 10 we have further examples of this.
Was Paul being foolhardy by walking into
danger, by returning to Jerusalem at a time
when it would be full of Jewish Pilgrims from all
over Asia Such men could point the accusing
finger at him as the one responsible for the
conversion of many Jews?
It would only be foolish to press on were he
not convinced that it was God who was leading
him into danger. Here is careless of life itself
concerned only for the work to which God had
called him! For him life was nothing in
comparison with obeying God’s will.
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
A lack of persevering single-mindedness that more than
anything else impoverishes fruitfulness? Jesus pointed out
this danger in the parable of the sower. ‘Some seed fell
among thorns… this is the man who hears the word, but
the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth
choke it making it unfruitful.’
Paul chose the right kind of carelessness; nothing
was allowed to stand in the way of obedience. The
carelessness against which Jesus warned was that
which erodes our commitment to God. As the
compass needle always points north are we
always moving towards the goal that God has
laid out for our lives?
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Insight Into Paul’s Ministry
Finally, he points to his integrity. It was important to Paul that others should
not think that he sought to profit from the gospel v33-35. Indeed, so intent
was he in preserving his integrity that he did not claim legitimate expenses.
Yes, he taught the church the importance of supporting her ministers, ‘The
worker deserves his wages’ 1Tm.5.18 but he himself was reluctant to stretch
his hand out.
Once people are persuaded that the
motivation behind our Christian
service is that of personal gain then
we cease to be effective communicators
of the gospel.
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Charge To The Elders
It is important to grasp the connection
between Paul’s review of his own ministry and
the charge he gives to the Ephesian Elders. The
personal qualities that Paul has disclosed
contribute towards the vigilance over the flock
of God for which Paul appeals.
Note the order, first, vigilance is required over
oneself and then, over the flock v28. If we fail
to nurture our own walk with God we will have
no success in helping others. Paul then
provides the elders with encouragements
towards being vigilant.
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Charge To The Elders
First, God has made them under shepherds
and so the safety and wellbeing of the
church is something for which they have a
particular responsibility. The Middle Eastern
shepherd was always on the lookout for
wolves who could quickly decimate the
flock. Now the value God placed upon his
flock was far greater than that of shepherd.
The church was so precious to him that he
bought it with his own blood. Was Paul
thinking of Jesus’ Good Shepherd address
when he said the ‘I lay down his life for the
sheep’ Jn.10v14? There is the measure of
the church’s worth!
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Charge To The Elders
Secondly, Paul urges vigilance because of
the inevitability of conflict. He is not merely
flagging up a possible danger, something
that might or might not happen. He is
saying, as sure as night follows day, the
church will be caught up in conflict. His
hearers knew that the wolf was the natural
predator of sheep.
Very well, says Paul, the church also has a
natural predator, a whole kingdom of evil is
at Satan’s behest and determined to
destroy the church. This is explicitly stated
in pictorial language in Rev.12v13-17…
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Charge To The Elders
Next Paul tells the elders the form this attack will
take. It will distort rather than deny the truth!
More damage is done through distortion because
it is more subtle, less easily identified and
resisted. Men and women are won away from the
truth by small degrees.
In John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, as Christian
nears the gates of the Celestial City, he sees a sliproad that led all the way to hell. Many came near
the gates, but because theirs was a distorted
belief, they were diverted from glory. We too
must beware of allowing our hearts to be drawn
away from Christ by small degrees.
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Charge To The Elders
Could this not produce a real climate of fear?
Paul with great pastoral sensitivity
anticipates this and first, commits his hearers
to God, who alone can keep us from falling.
Secondly, he commits them to the word of
God’s grace which is able to build them up,
producing a maturity that can recognise and
reject error.
There would be a struggle ahead but God
would be with them in that struggle. And at
the end of it, the promise of an eternal
inheritance that would be theirs. ‘Live with
this perspective on life’, he says.
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Charge To The Elders
What happened to the church these elders
represented? Cf. Rev 2v1-7 The church had
been troubled by false apostles but was
‘intolerant of false teachers’. The church had
heeded Paul’s warning in Acts 20v28-29.
The Nicolatians, advocated compromise with
paganism and taught that Christians should
without embarrassment, be able to take part
in the heathen social and religious activities on
their doorstep- including pagan sexual laxity.
This church is praised for resisting such
teaching.
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Charge To The Elders
But Ephesus is also accused of leaving her
first love. This is not to be confused with
losing the first emotional experience of
conversion, that is almost inevitable for
such loss weans us away from feelings and
makes us more dependant upon God
himself.
What is in view here is a decay of internal
heart commitment that can leave the
external religious duties and doctrinal
belief in place. The situation in Ephesus
warns of the danger of being doctrinally
correct but spiritually unhealthy.
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Charge To The Elders
The church is exhorted to repent of its formalism
lest her lamp stand be removed, i.e. a threat is
made against her continued existence as a place
of worship, where the blessing of God and the
presence of God could be found. Sadly, it is
possible for a group of Christians to meet regularly
together but for the ‘glory and presence of God’
to have departed. And that departure can often
take place unnoticed!
The church is encouraged to reform with the
promise to those who conquer that they would
‘eat of the tree of life’. To those who remain faithful
to Christ there is the promise of eternal life in the
paradise of heaven.
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Charge To The Elders
Surely the challenge for us is to recognise
that in a comparatively short period of time
this once devoted fellowship of God’s
people, while still preserving all of the
outward trappings of orthodoxy has lost her
love for Jesus.
They were busy and involved in good
Christian works but they had lost their love
for Jesus. They had their theology right and
knew what they ought to believe but they
had lost their love for Jesus. They had failed
to exercise the necessary vigilance over their
own walk with God. This challenge is
necessary in every age.
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